ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Fostering biocultural diversity in landscapes through place-basedfood networks: a ‘‘solution scan’’ of European and Japanesemodels

Tobias Plieninger1• Ryo Kohsaka2

• Claudia Bieling3• Shizuka Hashimoto4

•

Chiho Kamiyama5• Thanasis Kizos6

• Marianne Penker7• Pia Kieninger7,8

•

Brian J. Shaw3• Giles Bruno Sioen9

• Yuki Yoshida9• Osamu Saito5

Received: 27 December 2016 / Accepted: 3 July 2017

� The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication

Abstract Many Japanese and European landscapes har-

bor biocultural diversity that has been shaped by human

agency over centuries. However, these landscapes are

threatened by widespread land abandonment, land-use

changes, and urbanization. The aim of this study is to

use a ‘‘solution scanning’’ method to identify place-

based food networks in Europe and Japan that reinforce

linkages between biological and cultural diversity in

landscapes. In our analysis of 26 European and 13

Japanese cases, we find that place-based food networks

are typically located in heterogeneous landscapes, are

driven by civil society (and less by markets), and act at a

local scale. Regional identity is the most frequently

addressed societal issue. Scenery, rural tourism, and

nature conservation are more important motivations in

Europe, and physical well-being and revitalization of

local economies are more relevant in Japan. European

models are typically associated with achieving biodi-

versity conservation and socio-cultural tradition out-

comes, and Japanese models more with public health and

nutrition outcomes. We discuss the potential for transfer

of approaches from Japan to Europe (e.g., models that

tackle the aging of rural societies), and from Europe to

Japan (e.g., models that build explicit connections

between food production and biodiversity conservation).

We conclude with a list of recommended policy mea-

sures, e.g., the creation of a flexible legal framework that

protects the interests of and reduces political constraints

for collaborative efforts to biocultural diversity in

landscapes.

Keywords Landscape stewardship � Cultural landscapes �Alternative food networks � Sustainable landscape

management � Agroecology � Food systemsHandled by Iris Bohnet, James Cook University, Australia.

Electronic supplementary material The online version of thisarticle (doi:10.1007/s11625-017-0455-z) contains supplementarymaterial, which is available to authorized users.

& Tobias Plieninger

tobias.plieninger@ign.ku.dk

1 Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource

Management, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C,

Denmark

2 Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku

University, Sendai, Japan

3 Chair of Societal Transition and Agriculture, University of

Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany

4 Department of Ecosystem Studies, The University of Tokyo,

Tokyo, Japan

5 United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study

of Sustainability, Tokyo, Japan

6 Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Lesvos,

Greece

7 Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of

Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna,

Austria

8 Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of

Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

9 Graduate Program in Sustainability Science-Global

Leadership Initiative, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa,

Japan

123

Sustain Sci

DOI 10.1007/s11625-017-0455-z

Introduction

Landscape perspectives—understanding landscape here as

a spatial social–ecological system that delivers a range of

ecosystem services to society (Termorshuizen and Opdam

2009)—have developed into a pivotal domain of sustain-

ability science (Aronson 2011; Bohnet and Beilin 2015;

Pearson and McAlpine 2010). Landscape is the sphere in

which people and nature interact (Wu 2013), and most

sustainability challenges are embedded or become visible

in landscapes—for example, climate change, energy

demands, health and safety, food security, urbanization,

and migration (ESF 2010). Consequently, landscape per-

spectives are currently developing into a paradigm in glo-

bal environmental and development policies (Reed et al.

2016), based on regional landscape discourses that have

evolved in parallel. In Europe, these discourses have lar-

gely been framed around the European Landscape Con-

vention (Council of Europe 2000), and in Japan mainly

around the Satoyama Initiative (Takeuchi 2010).

In this study, we shed light on the commonalities of

European and Japanese landscapes. European and Japanese

landscapes share similar climates, and many of them are

‘‘ancient’’ landscapes that have not experienced major

disruption by external colonization (in contrast to Ameri-

can or Australian landscapes) (Backeus and Emanuelsson

2016). They host similar types of farming systems, with

small individual family farms being particularly important.

European and Japanese landscapes comprise dynamic

mosaics of settlements, arable fields, grasslands, orchards,

coppice woodlands, and forests as typical land-use patterns

(Hotes et al. 2015). These landscapes embody distinct

features that provide humans with goods and services

needed for their well-being (Garcia-Martin et al. 2017; Gu

and Subramanian 2014) and include a variety of habitats

and connectivity among these habitats, supporting elevated

levels of biodiversity (Halada et al. 2011; Katoh et al.

2009). Biological and cultural diversity are typically clo-

sely interconnected (EEA 2010; Fukamachi et al. 2011).

Despite a growing societal interest, many European and

Japanese landscapes are vulnerable to economic and social

changes (Hernandez-Morcillo et al. 2017; Hotes et al.

2015). Driving forces such as market integration, trade

liberalization, changing public policies, technological

progress, aging societies, and transitions from rural to

urban societies translate into tangible landscape changes, as

expressed in urbanization, agricultural intensification, land

abandonment, and forest expansion (Gu and Subramanian

2014; Plieninger et al. 2016).

In Europe and Japan alike, there has been an increasing

societal demand for high-quality landscapes (e.g., for

landscapes that offer better opportunities for outdoor

recreation and biodiversity conservation) and a general

trend toward decentralized landscape planning and policy.

These developments have led to the emergence of civil

society-based landscape stewardship initiatives that aim for

joint social, economic, and environmental objectives

(Bieling and Plieninger 2017; Kuramoto 2003). Landscape

stewardship is focused both on urban and rural landscapes

that are exposed to multiple societal demands, and it

involves multiple objectives, activities, scales, sectors, and

stakeholders (Garcıa-Martın et al. 2016). Among these

initiatives, the development of place-based food networks

(Hedberg 2015; Holloway et al. 2006) is one of the most

prominent approaches to landscape stewardship (see a

European and Japanese example in Fig. 1).

The sustainability of food provision will be a key

challenge for the first half of the twenty-first century, when

the global food demand is expected to increase by 25–70%

(Hunter et al. 2017). Three planetary boundaries—climate

change, biodiversity loss, and anthropogenic nitrogen

flows—have already been crossed irreversibly, all of them

driven by food production (Steffen et al. 2015). The spatial

concentration of farms specialized in the same products as

well as the intensification of food production (with

increasing nitrogen and phosphorus inputs in productive

areas and land abandonment in less-favored production

areas) have resulted in major land-use change and biodi-

versity loss (van Vliet et al. 2015). Place-based food net-

works are one in a series of actions that have been proposed

for a more sustainable food provision, including: (a) more

efficient food production and logistics systems (Schlich and

Fleissner 2005); (b) organic farming, which may support

the conservation of agro-biodiversity (Tuck et al. 2014);

and (c) internationally implemented labels, such as glob-

ally important agricultural heritage systems (GIAHS) or

social–ecological production landscapes (SEPL) which

highlight the value of diverse agricultural systems adapted

to different environments and a long-term commitment to

nature conservation and agricultural heritage (Koohafkan

2012).

This study starts from the observation that there are

striking similarities in the values that people ascribe to

European and Japanese landscapes and in the challenges

that these landscapes are facing. In both regions, civil

society initiatives that build place-based food networks in

landscapes are mushrooming, but the forms that these

initiatives take show distinct differences, for example in

terms of stakeholders involved, ecosystem services

addressed, type of knowledge used, linkages to biophysical

and cultural landscape features, understandings of human–

nature relationships, and conservation mechanisms selected

(Flint et al. 2013; Kieninger et al. 2011). Therefore, we

argue that there is high potential for an exchange and

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transfer of experiences. The present study aims to perform

a ‘‘solution scan’’ (Sutherland et al. 2014) to identify how

place-based food networks in Europe and Japan create

linkages between biological and cultural diversity in

landscapes. Our specific objectives are:

• to collect innovative models of place-based food

networks in Europe and Japan and to describe their

characteristics;

• to analyze the producer–consumer relationships

expressed in these networks;

• to identify the places of and flows between production

and consumption in these networks;

• to analyze how place-based food networks foster

biocultural diversity in landscapes.

Our paper is structured as follows. First, we review and

define the concepts of place-based food networks and

biocultural diversity that underlie our approach. Second,

we develop a solution scanning method. Third, we present

our catalog of identified food networks and analyze how

these networks reinforce biocultural diversity and, fourth,

we interpret our findings.

Concepts

Place-based food networks

Place-based or ‘‘alternative’’ food networks are understood

as ‘‘newly emerging networks of producers, consumers,

and other actors that embody alternatives to the more

standardized industrial mode of food supply’’ (Renting

et al. 2003, p. 394). This definition includes practices such

as local branding, short food supply chains, farmers’

markets, local quality labeling initiatives, geographic ori-

gin labels, hobby farming, food citizenship, non-market

food sharing and exchange, and education programs (c.f.

Kamiyama et al. 2016; Mann and Plieninger 2017; Van-

decandelaere et al. 2009; Vogl et al. 2004). The promise of

these networks is that their activities translate into actual

social and ecological benefits at the particular place of food

production (Dennis and James 2016). Place-based food

networks have developed over the recent decades as a

response to the expansion of globalized agri-food supply

chains that have become dominant in food markets. These

developments have largely eliminated regional differences

and places and distances for food products, thereby

reducing direct links between people and the landscapes of

food production. Our concept stresses the ‘‘place-based’’

character of these networks as a central property for pro-

moting sustainability (Clark and Dickson 2003). It

emphasizes their embeddedness to specific places of pro-

duction, and their experiential, environmental, educational,

socio-cultural, institutional, and other characteristics,

which distinguish them from placeless globalized food

(Follett 2009).

Biocultural diversity

Approaches to biocultural diversity—defined as ‘‘conser-

vation actions made in the service of sustaining the bio-

physical and socio-cultural components of dynamic,

interacting, and interdependent social–ecological systems’’

(Gavin et al. 2015, p. 140)—are useful to explore linkages

between food production and landscapes (Hedberg 2015).

They have recently gained ground in policy and research,

for example being emphasized in the ‘‘Joint Programme on

the Links between Biological and Cultural Diversity’’ of

UNESCO (Agnoletti and Santoro 2015) and in the

‘‘Charter of Rome on Natural and Cultural Capital’’ of the

European Union (Council of the European Union 2014).

Biocultural diversity involves the ‘‘diversity of life in all its

Fig. 1 Typical place-based food networks: Reutlinger Bio-Apfelsaft initiative in Germany, contributing to the preservation of biodiversity-rich

orchard meadows (c24, left); Tanada ownership system of rice terraces on Noto Peninsula, Japan (c27, right)

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manifestations—biological, cultural, and linguistic—which

are interrelated (and likely co-evolved) within a complex

socio-ecological system’’ (Buizer et al. 2016, p. 4). It is

particularly helpful as a framework to assess the diverse

and evolving relationships between people and nature in

landscapes (Vierikko et al. 2016). For example, Gamboni

et al. (2012) used such framework to explore the relations

between nutrition, diversity of food products, biodiversity,

and diverse landscapes in the case of the Mediterranean

diet.

Links between place-based food networks

and landscapes through biocultural diversity

Biocultural diversity expresses the linkages between peo-

ple and places (Vierikko et al. 2016). We argue that for the

understanding of these complex relationships of biocultural

diversity around place-based food networks and land-

scapes, three major dimensions have to be considered:

(a) producer–consumer relationships, which define the

connection between people in these networks; (b) places of

and flows between production and consumption, which

delineate the spatial relationships between different places

where place-based food networks act; and (c) landscape

outcomes that describe the multiple social–ecological

impacts of place-based food networks in landscapes. We

combine these dimensions as components in our concep-

tual framework in Fig. 2, as they offer descriptive and

analytical tools per place-based food network, but at the

same time accommodate comparisons over scales, spaces,

purposes, and effects.

The first dimension characterizes the ways that con-

sumers relate with food production (Vogl et al. 2004). Food

producers can provide food to consumers via market rela-

tions or as a gift or non-market exchange based on

reciprocity and regard (e.g., food exchange between rela-

tives and friends) (Kamiyama et al. 2016). ‘‘Prosumers’’

produce parts of their diets themselves. Private or com-

munity gardens, urban ‘‘experience agriculture’’, and other

initiatives provide food that is usually not transferred via

markets and where interaction is based on trust rather than

formal quality and traceability standards and monitoring.

The second dimension captures geographical distance

between production and consumption; it is focused on

places, flows, and the links between them. The archetypal

cases include proximity of production and consumption.

They can range from ‘‘prosumption’’ or farm restaurants

(where production and consumption take place at the same

place), to local markets where producers and consumers

directly interact (e.g., farmers’ markets), to cross-national

or even cross-continental food supply chains where con-

sumers typically are not able to directly interact with the

producers and processors.

The third dimension illustrates the tangible outcomes of

food networks in landscapes. Food is a major component of

biocultural diversity, and food systems are embedded in

landscapes in multiple ways, linking land management

practices, biodiversity, heritage, and cultural diversity (Gu

and Subramanian 2014). Principles for fostering biocultural

diversity of landscapes can be derived based on insights of

biocultural heritage, social–ecological systems theory,

integrated conservation and development, co-management,

and community-based conservation (Gavin et al. 2015). In

the context of landscapes and rural development, biocul-

tural approaches integrate multiple, frequently interlinked

issues within the domains of socio-cultural traditions,

biodiversity conservation, income generation, and nutrition

and health status (Johns and Sthapit 2004).

Methods

Our method, termed solution scanning, is an approach for

the systematic gathering, analyzing, and prioritization of an

expert-sourced list of actions specific to a problem. Such a

list can be useful in a broader decision-making process to

produce practical or policy interventions, or for setting

research agendas (Dicks et al. 2017; Sutherland et al.

2014).

Firstly, a goal derived from normative societal concern

about change or loss is defined (Pullin et al. 2013). Sec-

ondly, experts are asked to list what interventions they are

aware of from their own experiences that can leverage the

system toward the stated goal. Where a high variability of

interventions might exist, the use of a number of experts

independently supplying interventions overcomes both

researcher blindness and bias. Such inclusion of experi-

ence-based interventions might be missed in a review of

scientific literature alone (Fazey et al. 2006). Thirdly, the

interventions are collated and redistributed to the experts,

where they are assessed, cross-checked, and prioritized

according to a given criteria. Solution scanning offers a

fertile platform for exchange and learning for the experts

involved, as it challenges their mental models on how they

perceive a problem and what constitutes a solution, based

on their own observations and experiences (Fazey et al.

2006).

We adapted the solution scanning method to identify

place-based food networks in Europe and Japan, assessing

how they foster biocultural diversity and exploring their

potential for upscaling and transfer. In a first step, we

defined the goal as fostering biocultural diversity in land-

scapes through food networks. Next, we surveyed a net-

work of international experts in the fields of food and

landscape sciences from Japan and Europe to submit, using

an online form, example cases of alternative food practices

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from their personal or professional experiences. We chose

a broad, inclusive approach to receive as wide a range of

solutions as possible. In a third step, experts jointly

developed the basis for the conceptual framework linking

place-based food networks to biocultural diversity in

landscapes at a workshop in Tokyo. Following the defini-

tion of the assessment criteria, we redistributed the cases

by e-mail to the experts, who in teams of two assessed

them according to the themes of interest.

We developed a list of indicators collectively to capture

the three dimensions of the framework and to present,

analyze, and discuss examples of place-based food net-

works and the biocultural diversity related to them. The list

includes a wide variety of themes of interest and variables,

some self-explanatory (e.g., those describing the type of

product) and others that require discussion. For instance,

the type of designations includes official (geographic

indications) and also non-official designations, such as

places, practices, producers, plants, animals, and symbols

that may be used to ‘‘designate’’ products and food net-

works. Links to biocultural diversity can be applied to all

variables, depending on the type of product(s) and

networks.

The selection of the case studies was not always

straightforward as, although all possible cases are related to

a specific place, many are parts of specific registration

systems (e.g., protected designation of origin, protected

geographical indication, ‘‘ownership’’ programs, etc.),

while others are related only to a specific site. We decided

to treat those related to a specific registration system as one

in our analysis. Another issue concerned the number of

final products for each case study. Some cases refer to a

single product (e.g., one geographic indication, c22), while

others concerned many different products (e.g., vegetables,

fruit). The typologies we used (e.g., raw or processed

product) included all these individual products and there-

fore the number of products often exceeds those of the

cases.

Results

Geographic context and characteristics

Our scanning provided 39 different cases (Electronic

Supplementary Material S1). The 26 European examples

cover 14 countries (Fig. 3) and occur at different spatial

scales, ranging from international (e.g., c12) and national

schemes (e.g., c19) to regional (e.g., c14, c15) and local

models (e.g., c.23). The search yielded 13 cases from

Japan, covering eight prefectures (Fig. 4), mostly with a

focus on farm to local scales.

Twenty-six of the models include raw products and 23

processed products. In Europe, raw products are less fre-

quent (54% of European cases) than in Japan (92% of

Japanese cases). Products are largely of terrestrial origin

and include cultivated (e.g., fruits, olives, rice) and wild

food (e.g., mushrooms, herbs). Marine products are com-

pletely absent in the European cases, while they account

for 31% of the Japanese models (e.g., fish, oysters, algae).

Forty-six percent of European cases are animal products

(e.g., cheese, honey) and 73% plant products, whereas in

Japan 23% cover animal and 85% plant products. Products

with a long tradition (e.g., specialty ham from Spanish oak

woodlands, c22) are addressed by 65% (Europe) and 62%

(Japan) of the models.

Producers (sometimes organized in producer networks

or cooperatives) are always included in the models, both in

Europe and in Japan, while processors (e.g., creameries)

are less often involved (58% of cases in Europe, 54% in

Japan). Retailers and/or other businesses such as restau-

rants are represented similarly across the two geographical

areas (42% of cases in Europe, 46% in Japan). Third parties

(including certificate bodies, researchers, media, etc.) are

more involved in cases in Europe (54% compared to 38%

of cases in Japan). Consumers actively participate in both

areas, but they do so in all Japanese cases, while in Europe

they participate in 69% of the cases.

Fig. 2 Conceptual framework

comprising three dimensions of

biocultural diversity:

a producer–consumer

relationships; b places of and

flows between production and

consumption; and c landscape

outcomes

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Most of the cases are strongly associated with a specific

landscape, as they typically act on a local scale. Hetero-

geneous landscapes consisting of diverse land-use types are

much more often addressed (65% of cases in Europe, 62%

in Japan) than less heterogeneous (19% of cases in Europe,

15% in Japan) or uniform production landscapes (8% of

cases in Europe, 8% in Japan). Heterogeneous landscapes

are of great variety, covering for example Mediterranean

mixed landscapes (in the case of some geographic indica-

tions such as mastic cultivation on Chios island, Greece,

c4, and dehesas in Extremadura, Spain, c22), extensive

pasturelands (in the case of the ‘‘rent a cow’’ and ‘‘cow

sharing’’ schemes in Germany and Spain, c13, c25 and

‘‘ownership’’ programs in several parts of Japan, c27, c35),

and coastal and marine landscapes (in the case of the Fu-

rusato Takkyuubinn marine food delivery activity on Sado

island, Japan, c36). Uniform production landscapes mostly

refer to urban agriculture cases, such as the farmer-super-

vised ‘‘experience garden’’ (c32) in Tokyo.

Governance is most typically driven by civil society

(62% of European cases, 69% of Japanese cases), while

markets (31% of European cases, 46% of Japanese cases)

are a less prominent driver. Government-driven models are

more frequent in Japan (46% of cases, compared to 23% in

Europe), and, in this regard, seem to be more top-down and

centrally controlled than European cases. Typically, mod-

els around small-scale local production, gardening, and

‘‘prosumers’’ are driven by civil society, while markets

play a larger role for large-scale and less local (often

processed) products. A typical example for a civil society-

driven model is the widespread Tanada ownership system

of traditional rice terraces in Japan, c27. In contrast, the

commercialization of premium olive oil from Lesvos

(Greece, c6) is a case for a large-scale, market-driven case.

The cases respond to a diversity of societal issues

(Fig. 5). In Europe, they most frequently address local or

regional identity (62% of cases), nature conservation

(62%), and maintenance of scenery and rural tourism

(58%) challenges. In Japan, issues of an aging society

(69%), local and regional identity (62%), physical well-

being of consumers and producers (46%), and competi-

tiveness of local production (46%) are the most important

motivations behind the cases.

Dimension 1: producer–consumer relationships

Producer–consumer relationships are analyzed regarding

(a) the nature of interactions between producers and

Fig. 3 Locations of European cases

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consumers, (b) the market relations between them, (c) the

types of designation used in these relations, and (d) the

relation of the consumers with products and/or the places

of production. Interaction via an intermediary has slightly

more relevance (65% of European cases, 46% of Japanese

cases) than direct face-to-face interaction between

consumers and producers (62% of European cases, 46% of

Japanese cases) (Fig. 6). Prosumption, i.e., consumption of

self-produced food, plays a comparatively less important

role both in the European (35%) and the Japanese cases

(31%). More than half of the European cases have two or

even three ways of interacting with the consumers, whereas

Fig. 4 Locations of Japanese cases

0 % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Lack of public services

Food security

Health of consumers and producers

Lack of job opportuni�es

Land abandonment / aging society

Scenery and tourism

Revitalisa�on of local economies

Nature conserva�on

Local / regional iden�ty

European cases Japanese cases

Fig. 5 Societal challenges

addressed by the cases

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the Japanese cases typically focus on one of the three

approaches. For instance, in the ‘‘Self-experiments with a

local diet’’ initiative (c11), a newspaper encouraged fami-

lies to conduct a 6-month self-experiment, in which they

would exclusively consume local food through a combi-

nation of growing, harvesting, processing, and preserving

their own food (prosumption), face-to-face purchase, and

purchase of food through local intermediaries (and report

on this in a blog and the newspaper).

In the European cases, there is a clear dominance of

market exchange—predominantly to private consumers

(85%) and restaurants (46%). Only for two European cases

(8% respectively), sharing and barter are observed. For the

Japanese cases, market exchange to private consumers also

is the most important distribution method (69%); however,

we also see a comparatively high proportion of cases with

barter (15%) and sharing (31%). For example, residents

barter and share homegrown and foraged vegetables, fish,

processed/cooked foods, gifts, and offerings for ancestral

altars in the Iwakubi village case of Japan (c29). Often,

these products are exchanged for labor and knowledge, and

resources are frequently managed in collectives (e.g.,

cleaning of irrigation channels). Only 23% of the European

and 8% of the Japanese models sell place-based food to the

food industry.

The shares of official and unofficial/symbolic designa-

tions are higher in the Japanese cases (54% in Japanese and

42% in European cases for official designations; 31% in

Japanese and 23% in European cases for unofficial desig-

nations), despite the generally lower frequency of market

mechanisms there. In Europe, 50% of the cases do not have

any designation, whereas this applies to only 15% of the

Japanese examples. There are also differences with regard

to designations: European cases most frequently (50% of

cases) use designations of places (e.g., under the European

Union’s protection mechanism for geographical indica-

tions, c10), whereas for the Japanese cases designations of

particular production practices (46% of cases) have the

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Prosumers

Direct

Intermediary

to private consumers

to industry

to restaurants

Barter

Sharing

of place

of product

of prac�ce

of producer

Inte

rac�

onM

arke

t rel

a�on

s

Type

of

desig

na�o

n

European cases Japanese cases

Fig. 6 Producer–consumer relationships in the cases

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highest relevance (e.g., conservation certification for

Japanese crested ibis, c33, or organic certification in the

‘‘Teikei’’ case of Community Supported Agriculture, c30).

Both physical visits and symbolic linkages to the pro-

duction area play an important role in the majority of

European and Japanese cases. Whereas symbolic linkages

via festivals, labels, and events are similarly important as

physical visits in the European cases (77% and 81%, for

example in the Mas Claperol case, c25, where people

sponsor one specific dairy cow on a small farm that has a

specific name, a personality, and whose products they get

in exchange), the Japanese cases show a slightly lower

relevance of symbolic linkages compared to visits (62%

versus 69%).

Dimension 2: places of and flows

between production and consumption

The second dimension compares the geographical charac-

teristics of the place-based food networks in Europe and in

Japan from the perspectives of production and consump-

tion. It analyzes (a) the scale of production (from national/

international to farm scales, including coverage of multiple

scales), (b) the type of production (e.g., family farming,

industrial farming, community farming, full-time farming,

or part-time farming), (c) the degree of rurality of place of

production (ranging from urban, peri-urban, to rural areas),

and (d) the place of consumption (e.g., in the area same as

production, in proximity or in distance) (Fig. 7).

The local scale is the most prominent one both in European

(73%) and Japanese (62%) cases, followed by the farm (54%

and 54%) and regional (42% and 15%) scales. In Europe, 15%

of cases act at a national or international scale, whereas no

such cases were recorded in Japan. Most typically, case

studies are focused on foods produced in a single scale (farm,

local, regional or national/international scales) in both Europe

(46%) and Japan (69%). From the cases focusing on two

scales, the combination of the farm and local scales are most

popular in Europe (23% of all cases) and Japan (31% of all

cases). For example, the Wachauer Marille case (c10) is rec-

ognized for its apricots of protected geographical origin,

covering a total of 100,000 trees. The marketing is largely

organized on farm, i.e., at farm and local scales. Generally,

case studies in Europe tend to involve more various and wider

production scales than those in Japan.

The most important types of production that the cases

are engaged in are family and community farming (65%

and 50% in Europe and 62% and 77% in Japan). A typical

case combining different types of production is the Oak

Village restaurant in Kashiwa-no-ha, Japan, c39, which

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Farm

Local

Regional

Na�onal / interna�onal

Family farming

Industrial farming

Community farming

Urban

Peri-urban

Rural

Same as product

Proximate

Distant

Scal

eof

prod

uc�o

nTy

peof

prod

uc�o

nPl

ace

ofpr

oduc

�on

Plac

eof

cons

ump�

on

European cases Japanese cases

Fig. 7 Places of and flows between production and consumption in the cases

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relies both on locally produced foodstuffs, but also on

vegetables that patrons grow themselves and bring to the

restaurant.

Rural areas are the most frequent production places of

cases both in Europe (77%) and Japan (85%), followed by

peri-urban and urban areas. In Europe and Japan (69% of

cases respectively), most production sites are located

exclusively in rural areas. For instance, wine production in

Santorini, Greece, c5, is based in rural areas, but producing

for middle- to high-class consumers all over the world.

Here, many smallholders promote their wines under the

same name based on the geographical conditions and

uniqueness of to the landscape.

In Europe, most products are consumed in the same area

of or in an area proximate to production (65% and 69%,

respectively), followed by distant areas (31%). In Japan,

proximate and distant sites are more frequent (62% and

69%, respectively), followed by the same area of produc-

tion (38%). In Japan, eight cases (62%) include more than

one place of consumption, while only twelve cases (46%)

do so in Europe. Thus, Japanese cases tend to include more

various and more distant places, while European cases tend

more to the same place. An example of the former is an

initiative around a local food delivery service named

‘‘Furusato Takkyuubinn’’ in Sado Island, Japan, c36. This

initiative provides products not only to nearby consumers,

but also to selected restaurants throughout Japan.

Dimension 3: landscape outcomes

The four aspects assessed on the contributions of the cases

to biocultural diversity are (a) maintenance of socio-

cultural traditions, (b) contribution to biodiversity conser-

vation, (c) contribution to income generation, and

(d) maintenance of nutrition and health status (Fig. 8).

Socio-cultural traditions are well recognized and

embedded in 50% of European and 38% of Japanese cases,

typically promoted through regionality, traceability, qual-

ity, and knowledge of traditional cuisines and landscape

products. Many cases organize knowledge exchange, for

example between generations and between rural and urban

people. In the TERRAE case, c19, landowners offer their

lands to unemployed people through a ‘‘Land Bank’’ and

train them on how to become self-employed micro-farmers.

In the ‘‘cow sharing’’ and ‘‘rent a cow’’ cases, c13 and c25,

people are offered to visit and to take care of ‘‘their’’ cows.

In the Rice terrace ownership system, c27, people partici-

pate in traditional rice cultivation processes, with all work

carried out manually, and are taught how to produce tra-

ditional gifts, crafts, and dishes from landscape products. In

the ‘‘self-experiments’’, c11, people co-learn about food

growing, processing, and preserving. Socio-cultural tradi-

tions are also fostered through sharing and gifting practices

in non-market transactions within and beyond communi-

ties, for example through food exchange between satoyama

(landscape) and satoumi (seascape), c28. Voluntary, col-

lective landscape management work (e.g., cleaning of rice

irrigation channels) and rituals (e.g., festivals and cere-

monies) are also used, e.g., in c29.

The cases also show strong links to biodiversity con-

servation. Frequent activities include maintenance of par-

ticular seed varieties, conservation at farmland and/or at

landscape scale, maintenance of habitat structures, and

organic production practices. Again, linkages were more

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Socio-cultural tradi�ons

Europe

Japan

Biodiversity conserva�on

Europe

Japan

Income genera�on

Europe

Japan

Nutri�on and health

Europe

Japan

Clear Some Weak/none

Fig. 8 Landscape outcomes

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123

marked in Europe than in Japan, with 58% and 31% of

cases reported to have a clear contribution to biodiversity

conservation, respectively. Contributions to biodiversity

conservation typically occur along different dimensions,

namely by maintaining/fostering particular landscape fea-

tures or land-use practices that are important for biodi-

versity, by protecting open spaces or active farmland, and

by enhancing societal awareness for biodiversity conser-

vation. For example, place-based food networks maintain

key features of (agro-)biodiversity such as stonewalls and

terraces (c3), scattered trees (c24), fishways (c31), or local

livestock breeds (c15, c22) or foster land-use practices,

such as mixed cropping systems (c1) or reduced pesticide

use (c6). Some cases maintain active farmland by orga-

nizing exchange platforms for landowners (of abandoned

land) and land users (interested in finding land) (c24) or by

arranging land holdings in a not-for-profit trust that allows

farming to occur in peri-urban areas outside the develop-

ment pressures of normal market conditions (c7). Conser-

vation awareness is promoted, for instance through linking

products (apple juice, ham) to biodiversity outcomes in

production landscapes sometimes supported by labels and/

or certification (c3, c22, c24).

In both geographical areas, 62% of cases are assessed as

contributing strongly to income generation. Most typically,

income is generated through remuneration mechanisms for

specific food products from landscapes. Products are fre-

quently sold at prices higher than their mass-market

equivalents, and sold through particular channels, for

example through box schemes or farms shops (e.g., c7).

Often, value is added through marketing processed food

rather than bulk commodities (e.g., c30). Another aspect is

risk sharing through pre-financing, long-term guaranteed

prices or purchase guarantees, as addressed by community-

supported agriculture schemes (c8, c30).

Geographical differences are most pronounced in how

European and Japanese cases relate to people’s nutrition

and health (with 62% of European, 85% of Japanese

cases showing a clear or some contribution). In the Grand

Parc Miribel Jonage, c9, recreation possibilities for local

people have been enhanced by improving access to nature

and culture in landscapes for residents of the Lyon

metropolis. In rural communities of Japan, non-market

food exchange is inherent in the traditional lifestyle. In

addition to diversifying community members’ nutritional

intake in general, these informal networks offer a safety net

to elderly people to sustain their nutrition, access to food,

and health (c28, c29). While most case studies diversified

and enhanced consumers’ nutritional intake by providing

access to varied agri-food supply chains, health-based

motives were more evident in the Japanese case studies

surveyed (e.g., c30).

Discussion

Place-based food networks in Europe and Japan

This study responds to calls from science and policy to

identify, replicate, and upscale integrated approaches that

foster biocultural diversity of landscapes. We particularly

focus on place-based food networks as an emerging

approach to valorize distinct landscape characteristics. We

selected 26 European and 13 Japanese cases that we are

familiar with and that we believe are representative of the

diversity of approaches. Our European and Japanese cases

share some fundamental similarities. For example, cases

are most typically located in heterogeneous landscapes, are

driven by civil society (and less by markets), and act at a

local scale. By that, they contrast prevailing tendencies in

current food systems toward long-distance value chains,

with transnational corporations playing an important role

(Sundkvist et al. 2005). Consumers expect short supply

chains to be more sustainable due to a number of reasons,

such as (a) trust and transparency supported by face-to-face

interaction; (b) consumers’ insights into and sometimes

even opportunities to co-define local production standards;

(c) the conservation and development of place-based skills,

recipes, breeds, varieties, and diets; and (d) associated

benefits for landscape diversity and identity building

(Campbell 2009; Hinrichs 2003; Sonnino 2013). However,

these and other sustainability benefits of place-based food

networks often show trade-offs with aspects of efficiency,

as recently quantified for Mediterranean farming systems

(Rodrıguez-Ortega et al. 2017). In particular, the climate

effects of shorter food miles have been controversially

discussed regarding trade-offs between less transport-re-

lated emissions on the one hand and the energy-ineffi-

ciency of decentralised production and logistics systems on

the other (Schlich and Fleissner 2005).

In our cases both in Europe and Japan, regional identity

is the most frequently addressed societal issue. However,

we also find strong cultural differences. For example, raw

products and marine food are much more prominent among

Japanese cases, while processed, terrestrially produced

food dominates the European cases. Non-market exchange

(e.g., through bartering or sharing) of food, but also the use

of designations, is more widespread in Japanese cases. We

also found clear differences in motivations, with scenery,

rural tourism, and nature conservation being more impor-

tant for European cases, and physical well-being and

revitalization of local economies being more relevant for

Japanese cases. European cases seem to be more related to

achieving biodiversity conservation and socio-cultural tra-

dition outcomes, and Japanese cases more to public health

and nutrition outcomes.

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123

Following the biocultural framework by Johns and Sthapit

(2004), our analysis loosely classified cases by whether their

main focus is on the production (income generation) or

consumption (nutrition/health) side, and whether their con-

servation emphasis and impact are more on biodiversity or

on socio-cultural traditions. Overall, case studies in Europe

and Japan show similar distributions across the quadrants

(Fig. 9). In Europe, the continuum of cases with foci on the

biodiversity impacts of production processes, conservation

of landscape and food heritages, and cases emphasizing the

cultural implications of place-based products are more pro-

nounced. Certification systems stand out in Japan, and were

broadly categorized for their emphasis on ecologically ori-

ented practices or on the conservation of traditional products

and landscapes. In both regions, initiatives based on

embedded consumer experiences in the production land-

scape were placed in the quadrant of production and culture.

No cases were placed in the quadrant of biodiversity and

consumption, as initiatives with a primary focus on con-

sumer health were outside our focus on place-based food

networks. Finally, as discussed above, the biocultural aspects

of traditional place-based food networks were most inte-

grated, so that these cases were closest to the equilibrium of

orientations analyzed here.

How do place-based food networks relate

to landscapes through biocultural diversity?

Our cases suggest that landscape characteristics are both

outcomes and drivers of place-based food networks. Less-

productive mountain areas, for example, face difficulties in

competing on price-driven commodity markets. For farmers

located there, place-based food networks provide alternative

marketing channels that potentially link them to consumers

who are willing to pay more for immaterial product qualities,

such as the conservation of biocultural diversity. Therefore,

landscape characteristics may drive the development of the

place-based food networks analyzed on the one hand. On the

other hand, place-based food networks can be influential in

shaping landscapes (Ilbery and Kneafsey 1999; Ilbery et al.

2000; Marsden et al. 2000). These landscape impacts are not

‘‘by-products’’ or unintended outcomes of place-based food

networks. Rather, the networks deliberately practice land-

scape stewardship, as defined by Bieling and Plieninger

(2017). In particular, place-based food networks are able to

act as critical links between different influencing factors of

food and landscape quality, farming, forestry, ecosystem

management, and socioeconomic change. Place-based food

networks can also be an important nexus for creating con-

nections of people to landscapes within and across scales (c.f.

Sundkvist et al. 2005).

Limitations of our approach

Our solution scanning approach involves a diversity of

landscape and food systems researchers from a variety of

countries. The approach is exploratory in nature, and the

solution scanning method generally has low repeatability

(with possibly a different set of cases being covered if the

exercise would be repeated) and a moderate risk of bias

(Dicks et al. 2017). In particular, there is the possibility of a

bias toward certain geographic regions and cases. For

INCOME GENERATION

NUTRITION / HEALTH

BIO

DIV

ER

SIT

Y

CO

NSE

RV

AT

ION

SOC

IO-C

UL

TU

RA

L

TR

AD

ITIO

NS

Health-focused initiativesHealth-focused initiatives

European cases Japanese cases

INCOME GENERATION

NUTRITION / HEALTH

SOC

IO-C

UL

TU

RA

L

TR

AD

ITIO

NS

BIO

DIV

ER

SIT

Y

CO

NSE

RV

AT

ION

Traditional lifestyle(c28, 29)

CSA (c30)

Eco-orientedcertification systems• Seseragi no sato (c31)• Crested Ibis rice (c33)• Eco-agriculture Tochigi (c38)

Experience oriented• Tanada ownership (c27)• Urban farming (c32, 39)• Consumer visits (c36)

Place-oriented • Web-based ownership (c35)• Furusato takkyubin (c36)• Geographic Indication (c34)

Eco-oriented• Naranjasdel Carmen (c26)• Goat projects (c2)• Terre de Liens (c7)• Red TERRAE (c18)• Reutlinger Bio-Apfelsaft(c24)

Heritage oriented• Agricultural landscape

protection(c9, 20, 21, 23)

• Protection and reintroduction of foods (c1, 4, 6, 14)

Experience oriented• Urban farming (c8)• Rent a vine / cow (c12, 15)• Mas Claperol (c25)

Consumer experience• Steve Turton (c15) • Local diet self-experiment (c11)

Place-oriented• Wine from historical

vineyards (c3, c5)• Wachauer Marille (c10)• Geographic Indication

(c22)

Traditional lifestyle• Wild plant use (c16, 17, 18)

Fig. 9 Illustrative clustering of European and Japanese cases

Sustain Sci

123

example, countries such as Austria and Greece—where

some of the researchers are based—are strongly repre-

sented, whereas regions such as Eastern Europe are less so.

Also, our cases may be biased to the local scale. However,

we tried to minimize the risk of bias by including a broad

set of experts with strong and diverse experience in place-

based food networks. Further, we did not address issues of

cost-effectiveness and potential trade-offs such as those

between suppliers and consumers, and between food pro-

vision and different ecosystem services. For a clearer pic-

ture of the multiple landscape outcomes of place-based

food networks, a more comprehensive inventory of tradi-

tional and innovative models needs to be carried out.

Potential for transfer between Europe and Japan

and for upscaling

Despite many similarities and some context-specific par-

ticularities (e.g., the prevalence of marine products that is

rooted in Japanese fish-eating cultures), our results point to

some specific Japanese models that might be transferred to

Europe, and to some European models with potential for

application in Japan. Ideas that might be brought to Europe

include models that tackle the aging of rural societies and

rural depopulation at large, for example by involving urban

residents in the management of rural landscapes (c27).

Japan may also provide role models for making more

comprehensive use of innovative certification systems

(c33), for non-market exchange systems (c28), and for

combining food production with sustainability-oriented

education (c32). From the European cases, there may be

potential for transfer to Japan related to models that suc-

cessfully integrate scenery and tourism (c2), models that

build explicit connections between food production and

biodiversity conservation (c24), and models that link to

cultural heritage (c3, c23). The ability to scale up cases

clearly depends on the type of food networks. Although

generalizations are not always feasible, cases in the upper

half quadrants (income generation side of Fig. 9) tend to

present limitations to scaling up, since they are closely

associated with specific production systems and/or locali-

ties. In contrast, cases in the lower half quadrants (nutri-

tion/health side of Fig. 9) can scale up beyond the

boundary of the production system as long as consumption

demand levels do not exceed the levels of sustainable

production. The effects or interactions in this realm of

nutrition/health at different scales are areas under devel-

opment and subjects of future research.

The way forward

In the study, we present a number of cases where place-

based food networks and landscapes are closely connected,

using biocultural diversity as our analytical lens. Place-

based food networks relate to landscapes through biocul-

tural diversity approaches that foster biodiversity conser-

vation, socio-cultural traditions, income generation, and

nutrition and health status of people. The precise contri-

bution of place-based food networks to biocultural diver-

sity varies substantially from case to case, according to

agro-ecological conditions, resource scarcity, resource

ownership regime, characteristics of the food value chains,

and other factors (le Polain de Waroux and Lambin 2013).

Rather than establishing quantitative evidence for these

contributions, our study intends to display the variety of

different models of place-based food networks in land-

scapes of different contexts.

Although the state was not an important driver of most

cases and the public funding that they receive is typically

small, many initiatives depend crucially on this modest

public policy support. Further replication and upscaling

require a sound institutional framework. Agricultural policy

schemes, regulations on geographic indications and other

certificates, tax exemptions, or direct financial subsidies can

be part of such a supportive public policy framework. Taking

up experiences from integrated landscape management in

Europe (Garcıa-Martın et al. 2016) and accepting that place-

based food networks fulfill important public interests and

cultural identities; such support from science and policy

might be done through the following pathways:

• further evidence-based scientific assessment of place-

based food networks and their multiple contributions to

fostering biocultural diversity in landscapes as well as

potential trade-offs through systems approaches;

• strengthening of efforts to raise societal awareness of

existing models and to enhance the capacity for

fostering biocultural diversity in landscapes;

• creation of a flexible legal framework based on the

knowledge and experiences generated by place-based

food networks, to protect the interests and reduce

political constraints for collaborative efforts to biocul-

tural diversity in landscapes;

• definition of local quality standards complementing the

abundance of (inter-)national food standards, to ensure

the diversity of locally adapted breeds, varieties,

cultivation, and processing practices;

• advancement of existing labeling and certification

approaches to reinforce linkages between quality prod-

ucts, distinct production processes, and biocultural

diversity in landscapes also beyond local scales,

engaging consumers for landscape stewardship across

larger geographic distances; and

• stronger consideration of place-based food networks in

international trade and discourses on global food

security.

Sustain Sci

123

Acknowledgements This research received support through Grant

603447 (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation) (Project

HERCULES) from the European Commission (7th Framework Pro-

gram). It was further funded by the Policy Research Institute, the

Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Envi-

ronment Research and Technology Development Fund (1–1303,

‘‘Building Local Governance through Synergy and Tradeoff Analysis

of Ecosystem Services’’, and S-15 ‘‘Predicting and Assessing Natural

Capital and Ecosystem Services’’, Ministry of the Environment,

Japan), and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI,

15KT0027 ‘‘Building a sustainable society through the integration

between food sharing, low-carbon and resource efficient food supply

system’’, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science). The paper was

developed at an expert workshop at the United Nations University

Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, in Tokyo, 8–10

March 2016. The maps have been created by Kalliopi Avanidou. We

thank Katsue Fukamachi, Kaoru Ichikawa, Cinzia Piatti, Toru Terada,

Yuta Uchiyama, Christian Vogl, Makoto Yokohari, and Karl Zim-

merer for stimulating discussions. We are grateful to Yaw Boafo,

Marıa Garcıa Martın, Genevieve Girod, Zar Chi Hlaing, Kaoru

Ichikawa, and Akiko Ohno for suggesting place-based food network

cases. We wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for providing

useful feedback. This research contributes to the Programme on

Ecosystem Change and Society (http://www.pecs-science.org/).

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://crea

tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give

appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a

link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were

made.

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